ThredUp Wants to Bring Social Commerce to Thrift Shoppers

ThredUp is diving deeper into social shopping. The online thrift shop has hired a head of social commerce in a new role it announced today. Danielle Vermeer, who co-founded a thrifting app called Teleport, will join ThredUp in January. Touted as the "TikTok for thrifting," Teleport will wind down operations by the end of this year. While it's not an acquisition and there'll be no technology transfer as Teleport closes up shop, the hire reflects ThredUp's aim to build similar social shopping tech into its own business, explained CEO James Reinhart. This vision builds on ThredUp's generative AI tools that rolled out in August. ThredUp is a 15-year-old online clothing resale platform. It collects garments from consumers through "clean-out kits," which it then sorts and sells online. The original owner of an item gets a cut of the profit from each sale. A match made for the future of ecommerce ThredUp initially started discussions with Vermeer about finding a way for the two companies to collaborate, Reinhart said. But as they kept talking, another vision began to develop: "Why don't you just come build those things inside of ThredUp?" Reinhart recounted proposing to Vermeer. ThredUp has "the user base, the inventory, the capital structure, [and] the market-leading position" to turn the goals of Teleport into reality, he said. Vermeer launched Teleport in January 2023. Before that, she spent 4-and-a-half years in fashion at Amazon. The end of that stint was focused on resale and circular fashion for the ecommerce giant. Vermeer is the only employee from Teleport joining ThredUp. ThredUp "has transformed how people shop and sell secondhand online," Vermeer said in a statement. In her new role, she'll contribute to the company's "continued pursuit of enhancing the online thrifting experience." This summer, ThredUp also started quietly testing a direct listing feature—similar to the peer-to-peer business model used by competitors The RealReal and Poshmark. Poshmark has long incorporated social elements into its shopping platform, allowing users to follow sellers or comment on listings. Fighting for profitability The fight to make online thrifting profitable has been a long one, largely due to the costly logistics of collecting, sorting, posting, selling, and shipping used clothes. At the same time, a booming fast fashion industry continues to make cheap, new clothing easy and accessible to consumers. Founded in 2009, ThredUp went public in 2021 at $20 per share. By 2022, ThredUp stock had dropped to around $2 per share, where it hovered until a few months ago. Disappointing earnings this year—a 4% decrease in year-over-year revenue in Q2, and an 11% dip in Q3—sent those shares just below $1. Still, Reinhart told investors that the company has since course-corrected, and raised its Q4 outlook. Social commerce, he told ADWEEK, is a big part of the company's 2025 playbook. "The next generation of social commerce will be built on top of new ways to search, new ways for generative AI to create content and shops," he said. "There's going to be more ways for buyers and sellers to collaborate, and I think the AI tools are going to are going to provide a baseline for that."

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ThredUp Wants to Bring Social Commerce to Thrift Shoppers

The online secondhand shop hires Teleport's Danielle Vermeer

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